Bon Samaritan Ministry to Widows – Giving Challenge

“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” James 1:27 NIV

We have not done this before, but this post is actually a giving challenge. We serve with a ministry in Gabon (part of our larger PK27 project) called Bon Samaritan. Their focus is on caring for widows and training them so that they can work to support themselves. When PK27 is complete, they will have a training center and housing for many widows.

Right now, the ministry serves over 300 widows in the Libreville, Gabon area, and also reach out to all victims of poverty when possible, especially the elderly. They are fully registered as an NGO in Gabon and are making a difference in so many peoples’ lives. Pastor Choumbi, the leader of this ministry, sent us the following updates:

“I am very happy and excited that E4 has the burden for Bon Samaritan Ministry. As I said, we are currently meeting the specifications of charge you have left for us to do – to put widows in activities of income that allows them to take charge of their lives. We are meeting with our third church, and before you arrive in the month of February we will be able to present in 5 to 6 more churches where widows are becoming trained to take charge of their own support. Bon Samaritan relies much on the work you are performing for the mobilization of brothers and sisters of the churches of the United States through E4 PROJECT.

The week of January 23 to 29 we are organizing a seminar at the local church Nzé Ayong. The purpose of the seminar is to provide training to supervisors on how to build activities for widows and how to care for widows. Widows who have already started activities that generate revenues will exhibit and teach others to do those activities, and we ask you to support us in prayer for this program.

I wanted to express our appreciation for your loyalty and trust in our partnership in 2011 to the Christian widows who face every day situations of poverty but by the grace of GOD, Bon Samaritian allows them to respond effectively by enabling them to work for their support with the help of God. This is the vision of our NGO – Bon Samaritan – to work for the widows and elderly populations in GABON who are in poverty.

The year 2012 does not look particularly easy, as you know. This is particularly the case for many men, women and children, who are victims of food insecurity, lack of resources, basic sanitation, and education.

We wish to be released to help them, as it is our responsibility to act in their favor. We are implementing help with local partners, who are competent and motivated by an active faith.”

We are asking you to step up in any way that you can to give specifically to this NGO partner of ours in Gabon. E4 will match whatever is raised between now and the end of February (up to $5000), and give the funds to Bon Samaritan to help them continue in the amazing work that they are doing. You can give on our “give” link above or send checks to E4 Project, 6523 Bluebird Ave., Longmont, CO 80503, and please put in the note that it is for Bon Samaritan.

The photo above is from when Eric Schmidt, Co-founder and Chairman of the Board for E4 was in Gabon this past summer. He met with this ministry and the group of widows that were there that day sang to him (video below).